My latest in PJ Media:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday announced that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria, which was renamed “the West Bank” by Jordan in 1948, were not “inconsistent with international law.” CNN noted indignantly that this “breaks with international law and consensus,” but in reality, no state and no entity, including the Palestinian Authority, has any valid legal claim to that territory other than Israel itself.
“After carefully studying all sides of the legal debate,” Pompeo said, “this administration agrees with President Reagan: the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law,” although he added that the U.S. government was “expressing no view on the legal status of any individual settlement” or “addressing or prejudging the ultimate status of the West Bank.” This decision, Pompeo added, was “based on the unique facts, history and circumstances presented by the establishment of civilian settlements in the West Bank.”
The announcement represented a break with the stance of the Obama administrations and previous administrations that had regarded the Israeli settlements as a sticking point in the vaunted “peace process,” and repeatedly called upon the Israelis to suspend them. But Pompeo was right. The “unique facts, history and circumstances” of Judea and Samaria include the fact, however uncomfortable it may be to the political and media elites, that the West Bank is not “occupied Palestinian land.” There is actually no Palestinian land to occupy. There never has been a Palestinian state in history, and the Palestinian nationality itself wasn’t invented until the 1960s, as a propaganda point that could be used to attack Israel. The Palestinian Arabs are no different culturally, linguistically, or religiously from the neighboring Arabs of Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.
The reality, as the new book The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process shows, is that this land was part of the Ottoman Empire. When that empire was crumbling at the end of World War I, it ceded the territory to the League of Nations, which awarded it to Britain for the express purpose of establishing a national home for Jews.
There is much more. Read the rest here.
Angemon says
Right, because that would be the magical Israeli concession that would work where all other concessions before failed…
Brigitte from Germany says
https://www.change.org/p/oslo-city-council-oslo-should-not-go-from-peace-to-boycott
Can you sign and share this important petition please.
Thanks.
And President Trump is right with Judea and Samaria.
God bless Trump.
gravenimage says
Signed!
Mary says
Signed
gravenimage says
Pompeo: Israeli Settlements ‘Not Inconsistent with International Law’
……………..
Yes–so good to hear!
owensgate says
Really, the word “Settlements” is not the right word, as it implies “squatters”, whereas what the Israeli’s are doing is building homes on their OWN LAND. They should annex ALL the land God granted to them, and kick the WAQF of the Temple Mount.
gravenimage says
+1
Infidel says
Settlements are today’s San Francisco, Skid Row, Portland and Seattle – where the streets are public toilets
mortimer says
If the United States, France, Germany and the United Kingdom support Israel’s ownership of Samaria and Judea, the whole psychodrama will die out and the region will have peace.
gravenimage says
That support would *certainly* help, Mortimer–but Muslims will still want to destroy civilized Israel.
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Many people seem to be under the impression that Secretary Pompeo was “reversing” or “undoing” four decades of American policy. He was not. In 1978 Herbert J. Hansell, the legal advisor to the State Department at the time, wrote an advisory opinion in which he stated that the Israeli settlements violated international law. This view represented American policy for all of three years, during the anti-israel Carter administration. In 1981 President Reagan firmly declared that the settlements were “not illegal.” For the next 35 years that remained the policy of the American government: the settlements were not illegal. Some regarded them as “not helpful” to attaining a peace, but not even Secretary of State James Baker, known for his antipathy to Israel, dared to call the settlements “illegal.” And that was the American view until December 28, 2016, in the waning weeks of the Obama administration, when Secretary of State Kerry declared that the settlements were indeed illegal. That position stood for only three years, until carefully rejected by Secretary Pompeo. To repeat: when the New York Times, CNN, the AP, and Reuters all describe Pompeo’s remarks as undoing “four decades” of American policy they are flatly wrong. For 35 of the past 41 years, American policy has declared the settlements to be legal.
Reply
gravenimage says
Thank you, Hugh.